In this blog: LEAF Gen 2 sales started Oct. 1 in Japan and Nissan already reports 14,000 sales.
This is combined for October in Japan and Europe and is more than the previously reported 9,000 orders. Nissan also released information about the holdback that prevented delivery and registration of hundreds of cars that were counted as fully bought and paid for...
We've being invited to a special party in Sofia last month to see the new LEAF – seems like Renault Nissan Bulgaria did a great job securing one demo LEAF 2 car from Japan to showcase it in Bulgaria before Sofia Motor Show 2017. The surprise was that initially we were told the cars stays here for just 24 hours, but at the party they announced it's going to the show as well (for 10 days). So public was able to take a look and possibly negotiate preorders.
For now Nissan is an indusputed leader against competition. Chevy Bolt registered 579 in its first month in December 2016, and Tesla delivered just 30 Model 3 in the first month after a ceremonial delivery event.
According to Nissan sales chief Asako Hoshino the company sold 9,600 Leafs in Japan and we're talking fully paid cars here, not preorders. There were some discrepancies because some orders were for cars considered internally by Nissan as fully sold, but not necessarily delivered.
There was a temporary delay in production and as a result on Oct. 19 Nissan had stopped all Japanese market deliveries, cutting its number of deliveries in half. On Tuesday the company resumed shipping cars from five of its six plants, and it looks like the very temporary bottleneck has been cleared.
With Christmas approaching we're expecting even greater LEAF 2 sales, but for now Renault Nissan Bulgaria didn't provide any details when the model is going to be available in Bulgaria. Options and prices are also not available at this time.
